Salvation In Sandpoint Transplanted Coach, Football Program Find New Life In Partnership

Satini Puailoa remembers thinking that Santa Barbara, Calif., was the only place he wanted to live.

He would be the head football coach at the school where he had starred while playing for his father, Satini Puailoa II, and he would revive the once-proud program that had fallen on tough times. He would also raise a family.

During the late 1980s, however, the once-safe campus at San Marcos High School became the turf of three gangs. Puailoa had no choice. He had to move his family.

It was February 1994 when he heard that a small town in the Idaho Panhandle, near his sister’s hometown of Post Falls, would soon be hiring a head football coach.

So 2-1/2 months before school officials accepted applications for the job, Puailoa visited Sandpoint.

He walked the halls of the high school, sat in his car in the school’s parking lot and drove through the city streets. He even took in a boys basketball game between Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls at CdA.

“I was watching the kids; I wanted to see them interact,” said Puailoa, who’s half American Samoan. “It was like a time warp, something out of 20 years ago. I didn’t see any gang attire or graffiti.”

He was sold on Sanpoint. He applied for the job and was hired.

“When I got the job I heard a lot of people say that the program couldn’t be turned around. But what I saw here was a gold mine.”

The woebegone state of the program he inherited didn’t bother him at all.

“It’s what I like to do, build and start from scratch,” said Puailoa, who took over a team that had one only once in two years and had finished 1-8 after suffering through an eight-game losing streak the previous season. Making matters worse, just five players were expected to turn out in the junior class.

Puailoa wouldn’t make the move to Sandpoint until midsummer, but that didn’t stop him from starting the reclamation project.

He made $500 worth of long distance calls the first month, convincing 30 players to go to summer camp. Just eight had gone the summer before.

“I went out and found as many juniors and seniors who didn’t play or had quit playing and got them to turn out,” he said.

When preseason practices began in mid-August, Puailoa had recruited 15 more juniors and the overall turnout for four grades had doubled from the year before, from 60 to 120.

Those were more impressive numbers than the 2-7 record the Bulldogs posted his first season. But there were several positive signs during the year.

Sandpoint opened the season scoring 29 points in a 43-29 loss to Bonners Ferry. That was nearly half the points the Bulldogs scored the previous year.

Last season, Sandpoint finished 6-4, advancing to the state playoffs for the first time since 1987.

The players, the community, immediately fell in love with Puailoa’s dynamic style: a mix of humor, enthusiasm and fundamentals.

Standout running back Jeremy Thielbahr was the lone sophomore brought up to varsity the first season. The balance of the sophomores made up the junior varsity.

“He’s a players’ coach,” Thielbahr said. “His dedication is the thing that gets us motivated.”

One creative way Puailoa tried to motivate the Bulldogs last season occurred at halftime of the final regular-season game at Post Falls.

The Bulldogs had their dogfood handed to them, ultimately losing 33-7. But Puailoa, in an attempt to inspire a second-half comeback, ate several live worms.

“He said sometimes you have to do the extra things to win,” Thielbahr recalled.

“I’m 3-1 now with the worms,” Puailoa said, chuckling.

Puailoa hasn’t had to resort to such motivational gimmicks this year, though. The Bulldogs are off to a 4-0 start as they head into their Inland Empire League opener Friday at Lake City.

In a year the Bulldogs hope is filled with milestones, Sandpoint has already posted two impressive victories.

Two weeks ago, Sandpoint rallied from an early 14-0 deficit to spank Borah 43-29. “Our senior leadership really came forward then,” Puailoa said.

Last week, Sandpoint, winless in the last three years against West Valley, manhandled the Eagles 43-6. Equally impressive the Bulldogs overcame what had been their usual flat week, Puailoa said.

Sandpoint left an indelible indentation on West Valley.

“(Sandpoint) is one of the best teams I’ve coached against in a long time,” said WV coach Steve Kent, a 12-year head coach whose team opened the season with losses to Lewiston (49-21) and Post Falls (28-12). “They just have a lot of good players, and they play them on one side of the football only.”

That’s one of several elements that separates Puailoa’s coaching philosophy from others. He’s cut from a different pigskin than most coaches.

He’s a proponent of the two-platoon system for two reasons: It creates enthusiasm in the program, allowing double the kids to start; and his team should be fresher later in the game than opponents who use players both ways.

“I know our kids will play harder than any other team because we’re only playing one way,” Puailoa said.

On other teams, Thielbahr and senior linebacker Ryan Knowles, both of whom are being recruited by several NCAA Division I schools, would start both ways.

“How I run a high school program isn’t probably how most programs are run,” Puailoa said. “What we’ve done is been a lot out of necessity. We were the smallest school in our league (in California). When I came here I faced a lot more difficulties than my first year at San Marcos. There was still the remnants of a program (at San Marcos). Here a lot of that was dissolved, there was much less infrastructure here.”

“Nobody puts in more time than Satini,” said assistant coach Bill Barlow, who had two stints as Sandpoint’s head coach.

Consider:

Puailoa has nearly all 150 players (for four grades) in his physical education classes, giving him plenty of personal contact with the players throughout his program.

The Bulldogs film all varsity games from four different angles, and they videotape all practices.

Puailoa has a simple approach offensively and defensively: Keep it simple and execute. Without being too specific, Puailoa can count on a pair of hands how many plays the Bulldogs run offensively from week to week. And they rarely deviate from their base defense.

“We’re constantly working on repetition,” Puailoa said. “That’s why we film our practices. We worry more about what we’re doing than what the other guy is doing.”

And, Puailoa has a small doghouse.

“I’m not big on punishing kids,” he said. “Kids penalize themselves by their effort. We don’t do sprints. You’ll never hear ‘On the line’ at our practices. We relate everything we do - drills, work on technique - to the game. You can get the same conditioning out of teaching technique as you do out of running.”

It’s a small wonder, then, that Sandpoint has the largest turnout in the Panhandle.

And it’s no surprise success has followed.

Puailoa admits he misses Santa Barbara.

“That’s where most of my family and friends live,” he said.

But that’s all he misses.

“In this town he could run for president and win,” Thielbahr said.

He’d get at least 150 votes. But right now, Puailoa is tickled to be in the middle of a football revival.

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